Matthew Bazell is somewhat distracted
I’m not a gambling addict. If I were, there is no possible way I could watch football anymore. The betting industry, along with other global brands, seem totally addicted to imposing itself on the beautiful game at every opportunity. In fact, if there’s one thing that makes football less beautiful, it’s the sight of Party Poker and others being flashed on digital touchline hoardings.
It must always have been hard to watch sport if you suffer from a gambling addiction. In today’s climate, it must be almost impossible for anyone without an incredibly strong will. The shirt sponsors are telling us to bet (seven out of 20 Premier League clubs have a gambling shirt sponsor); the digital touchline hoardings are telling us to bet; radio stations like TalkSport are telling us to bet. And, at half time, the first thing the TV viewer is met with is Ray Winstone telling us how to bet: “The latest odds are right behind me…bet NAAW!”. Is it just me who considers a multi-millionaire movie star encouraging others to p*ss their hard earned money away into the hands of bookmakers to be rather questionable?
Overbearing advertising in general has taken the escapism away from following your team. A football match is now 90 minutes of digital flashing hoardings, pounding us into submission to buy their client’s product. On many occasions my eyes get taken away from the game and onto the hypnotic touchline message. This represents something very significant. The people who run football would rather you were watching adverts than the match.
Imagine the cinema goer having to put up with the same level of intrusion. Try to picture flashing digital hoardings below the big screen during the movie. “Sorry, I missed that line. I was distracted by Virgin’s prices to Vegas”. Such a concept would be deemed as unacceptable (though I hope I’m not giving any ideas to the multiplexes). So why is this acceptable at football (and other sports like rugby)? You would imagine that the flashing digital images would put the players off - though they can’t complain, as the revenue from obscene flashing adverts goes to fund their obscene wages.
At least if you’re at the game there’s respite at half time and no Ray Winstone and co leading you into temptation. Wrong! The big screens in the stadium take over to tell us who to fly with, who to shop with and what to spray our armpits with. If those messages don’t figuratively knock you out, then maybe the gift packs that the O2 team fire into the crowd from a gun at the E******s Stadium might do so literally. And that brings us on to stadium branding. The term “the Emirates crowd” is now a way of describing a group of people who were once known as Arsenal supporters. How undignified. It makes me feel glad that I’m on a boycott and, therefore, do not get referred to as a fan of an Arab airline with which I’ve never even flown.
Maybe if overbearing advertising eased the admission charge burden for the paying fan, supporters would at least have a worthy consolation for their vulgar flashing intrusion. But, the irony has been that prices were raised to obscene levels during the same period when flashing hoardings and stadium branding became an accepted part of football. With clubs totally addicted to making huge sums of money, we shouldn’t expect less intrusive advertising any time soon.
Matthew Bazell is the author of Theatre of Silence: the Lost Soul of Football
